Evaluation of Factors Determining Lodging Method of Tax Returns

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EVALUATION OF FACTORS DETERMINING LODGING METHOD OF TAX RETURNS
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Introduction
In Australia, it is a requirement by law to lodge tax returns after the end of each financial year.This
can be done personally or by use of registered tax agents at a cost.Tax returns covers the financial
year from 1 July to 30 June and they are due by 31 October,delayed lodging of returns attracts
penalties(Australian Taxation Office,2015).
The ATO is a non-corporate Commonwealth entity within the Treasury portfolio and serves four
Ministers;treasurer,assistant minister to the treasurer,minister of revenue and financial services and
minister for small businesses (Australian Taxation Office,2015)
Australian Taxation Office always carries surveys through phone and online surveys, discussion
groups and individual interviews, depending on the type of research; ongoing or on-off research
projects.Their research is mainly on their customers’ satisfaction and their attitudes.However, and
they usually engage research companies to carry out the research on their behalf (Australian
Taxation Office, 2015)
Most researches have focused on people’s attitudes toward taxation process, this opens up a gap for
research on the most preferred method of lodging tax returns by the taxpayers.
This study therefore, seeks to; know the proportion of people who lodge a tax return using a tax
agent; Whether there is a difference among the age groups in terms of their lodgement method;
Whether there is a relationship between total income and the lodgement method; Relationship
between total income and deduction amount and finally, find international students’ preference of
tax return lodgement method.
Data for this research was obtained from a sample file from Australian Taxation Office (ATO).This is a
secondary source of data.
Dataset 1
This dataset was obtained from a sample file from Australian Taxation Office (ATO), which is
secondary data, because it had been collected and documented already. This dataset is a subset of
2013-2014 individual sample file.
The variables in this dataset are gender, age, lodgement method, total income and total deductions.
Gender is numerical as it is coded 0 and 1, males and females respectively. Its measurement is
nominal as one can only belong to one gender, either male or female
Age is numerical type of data.It was grouped and coded from 0-11, this measurement is ordinal
because it was coded from high to low
Lodgement method is string data type.There are two methods of lodging tax returns, through the
agent or personally, hence, its measurement is therefore, nominal.
Total income and total deductions are numerical types of data. Their measures are scale.
1

Display of the first five cases of the dataset 1.
Table 1
Dataset 2.
The data will be collected through face-to-face interviews guided by structured questionnaires; the
data is unbiased, as simple random sampling will be utilized in selection of the sample.This means
that each student will have equal chance of being included in the sample.
This is a primary source of data.
The variables in the dataset include the gender, age, and education level and lodgement method. All
variables are numerical data type.
Descriptives
Gender and lodgement method
The bar chart below displays the count of each gender and the preferred method of lodging tax
returns.
The graph shows that use of agents is the most preferred method of lodging returns by both gender.
The proportion of males preferring use of agents (392/1000) is higher compared to the proportion of
the females (339/1000).More females prefer preparing for themselves (143) than males (126)
Figure 1
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